﻿The title of this blog is dedicated to those world views which mistake necessary for sufficient
conditions, view reasoning as reducible to physics, and substitute reality with imagination. A subtitle of
this blog could be “Reality Deficit,” since it endeavours to deal with world views, statements and
definitions of existence which are inconsistent or deficient in reality. Invest or spend this reality
cheque as you see fit, and please don’t hesitate to inform me if it ever bounces.

Welcome

I attack worldviews that are inconsistent. I do not attack people. Please contribute. I welcome constructive and negative criticism, however personal attacks and character assassinations do not a logical argument make.

ID relevant mathematics

Politics

Galileo Galilei

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same god who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.

Albert Einstein

The scientist's religious feeling takes the form of
rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.
(The World As I See It, p.9)

Robert Wright

Its amazing that a process as amoral and crassly pragmatic as natural selection could design [!] a mental organ that makes us feel as if we’re in touch with higher truths. Truly a shameless ploy.

Sir Francis Bacon, "Novum Organum"

“Lastly, there are others who appear anxious lest there should be something discovered in the investigation of nature to overthrow, or at least shake religion, particularly among the unlearned. The two last apprehensions appear to resemble animal instinct, as if men were diffident, in the bottom of their minds, and secret meditations, of the strength of religion, and the empire of faith over the senses; and therefore feared that some danger awaited them from an inquiry into nature. But any one who properly considers the subject, will find natural philosophy to be, after the word of God, the surest remedy against superstition, and the most approved support of faith. She [i.e., natural philosophy=science] is therefore rightly bestowed upon religion as a most faithful attendant, for the one exhibits the will and the other the power of God.”

J. B. S. Haldane

But if death will probably be the end of me as a finite individual mind, that does not mean that it will be the end of me altogether. It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter.
For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have a no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does
not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.
In order to escape from this necessity of sawing away the branch on which I am sitting, so to speak, I am compelled to believe that mind is not wholly conditioned by matter. But as regards my own very finite and imperfect mind, I can see, by studying the effects on it of drugs, alcohol, disease, and so on, that. its limitations are largely at least due to my body.”
“When I Am Dead”, Possible Worlds: And Other Essays

Max Planck

﻿“All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particles of an atom to vibration and holds this minute solar system of the atom together . . . . We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind.”
(during his Nobel acceptance speech)

Louis Pasteur

The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator.
“Louis Pasteur—Founder of Modern Medicine”

C. S. Lewis

﻿If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents - the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else's. But if their thoughts - i.e., of Materialism and Astronomy - are merely accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be
able to give me a correct account of all the other accidents. It's like expecting that the accidental
shape taken by the splash when you upset a milk-jug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset.

Cyril Burt (British neurologist)

﻿A comparison of the specific micro-neural situations in which consciousness does and does not arise suggests that the brain functions not as a generator of consciousness, but rather as a two-way transmitter and detector, i.e., although its activity is apparently a necessary condition, it cannot be a sufficient condition of conscious experience.

G. K. Chesterton

﻿. . . The Darwinians have this mark of fighters for a lost cause, that they are perpetually appealing to sentiment and to authority. Put your bat or your rhinoceros simply and innocently as a child might put them, before the Darwinian, and he will answer by an appeal to authority. He will probably answer with the names of various German professors; he will not answer with any ordinary English words, explaining the point at issue. God condescended to argue with Job, but the last Darwinian will not condescend to argue with you. He will inform you of your ignorance; he will not enlighten your ignorance.
And I will add this point of merely personal experience of humanity: when men have a real explanation they explain it, eagerly and copiously and in common speech, as Huxley freely gave it when he thought he had it. When they have no explanation to offer, they give short dignified replies, disdainful of the ignorance of the multitude.
(published in 1920)

Robert Jastrow

﻿A sound explanation may exist for the explosive birth of our Universe; but if it does, science cannot find out what the explanation is. The scientist’s pursuit of the past ends in the moment of creation. This is an exceedingly strange development, unexpected by all but the theologians. They have always accepted the word of the Bible: In the beginning God created heaven and earth… At this moment it seems as though science will never be able to raise the curtain on the mystery of creation. For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.

Monday, January 15, 2007

I'd like to add that any statement that says that "the Christian religion is responsible for horrible murderous atrocities throught history" is the largest heaping pile of maggot infested BS that I have ever heard!

It is human nature, rather than Christianity which causes people to murder others. People who call themselves Christians have the potential ability to murder and torture others just as well as atheists and vice versa.

However, the real problem begins once we realize that murder is inconsistent with Christian doctrine as expounded by Jesus: "Love your neighbor as yourself." However, since atheism has no doctrine (if it did, it would be a religion), then you may do whatever you please. Murder is neither consistent nor inconsistent with atheism -- it's just a chemical reaction that happens from time to time. If it is within your own self-made moral guidelines to murder others, than by all means why stop yourself? As long as you can get away with it and turn out to be the fittest, you may be starting a new trend in evolutionary development. May the fittest (and his "morality") survive!

[disclaimer: please note sarcasm, however consistent it may be with atheism and materialism, in the last three sentences.]

Friday, January 5, 2007

In my book, I challenge the attempt to locate a non-relative justification for morality in Darwinism. According to a Darwinian conception of ethics, every behavior regularly practiced by at least some subpopulation of human beings is ultimately a product of natural selection. Thus, while the maternal instinct is “natural” according to Darwinism, so is infanticide. While monogamy is “natural,” so are polygamy and adultery. Because of this uncomfortable truth, even some noted Darwinists such as Thomas Huxley have recognized the difficulty of grounding ethics in a Darwinian understanding of nature. If all human behavior patterns are equally justified by natural selection, then there is no way to use Darwinism itself to classify any particular behavior as intrinsically right or wrong. For example, if natural selection is a complete explanation for pedophilia on the part of certain males, how can we say that such behavior is intrinsically wrong in Darwinian terms? Pedophilia must persist in a certain subpopulation of males because it offers a survival advantage selected for by natural selection. Thus, in Darwinian terms, the behavior of pedophiles is just as defensible as the behavior of non-pedophiles. Of course, if we believe in a moral standard that exists outside of the Darwinian process of natural selection, we can judge pedophilia according to that standard and declare it to be wrong. But according to Arnhart, no such standard exists. The most significant problem with Darwinism is not that it encourages amoral behavior but that its purported account of morality undermines the ability to make objective and non-relative distinctions between what is moral and what is immoral.

Thursday, January 4, 2007

Mesk:What makes you think that the notion that all evolutionary processes are good is a premise for Dawkins? I've seen nothing in his writing to suggest this; indeed, in The Selfish Gene, he states that, "We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators [i.e. our genes]" and urges us, "Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish". In other words, Dawkins clearly believes that humanity can and should overcome its evolutionary heritage.

Well, then what is Dawkin's using as a premise to judge "good" from "bad" and why would this premise be justified? Keep in mind that the concepts of ""good" and "bad" and our ability to judge "good" from "bad" is programmed into us through RM+NS. What is the purpose of "good" verses "bad" in an RM+NS scenerio?

As well, why does he believe that we should "try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish?" Is selfishness bad? Is generosity good?

Furthermore, is Dawkin's meme that "humanity can and should overcome its evolutionary heritage" a result of RM+NS evolutionary heritage? Is this meme "good" or is it "bad." Is it something we objectively "ought to" do as opposed to something we objectively "ought not" do. One should be able to notice that this meme is self-defeating given accidental, purposeless RM+NS as a premise.

I requote myself from my first comment on this post:

"Well, then we'll have to first start off by examining what is "bad." If we are looking at the concept of "bad" from the vantage point of a purposeless universe which created the concept in question through a random process filtered by reproductive success and surviveability, then I'm sure we can judge "badness" as that which would hinder reproductive success and suriveability. But of course, this does not deal with "bad" in the sense of being that which we objectively "ought not" do (as C.S. Lewis put it).

If the above is truly the case, the "good" and "bad" would be merely subjective constraints agreed upon by those who wish for evolution to continue. Obviously, though, this wish itself — that of evolution continuing — must be ASSUMED to be "good" or something that "ought" to happen, since I see no reasonable way to judge this wish as "good" or "bad" itslelf — as in something that objectively "ought" to or "ought not" to happen. If the process of evolution occured non-purposefully, then it just occured. Evolution itself would be neither good nor bad, and reducing everything to its essential core, would then compel us to realize that anything resulting from evolution is neither good nor bad."

If you have a better way of defining and judging "good" from "bad," in a purposeless universe which created life in an accidental, purposeless, RM+NS scenario, please lay it out for me.

Mesk:

Bradford: The difficulty with an NS paradigm lies with its capacity to explain everything and nothing at the same time. Whatever moral precepts exist among humans is traceable to NS causality. But that renders NS an ad hoc explanatory device providing little guidance as to actual prediction indicators.

I agree that this can be a major problem - just look at the appalling state of evolutionary psychology for a damning example of how easy it is to lose sight of the evidence in the search for a useful paradigm. However, evolutionary hypotheses regarding the origins of morality can and have been tested empirically. For instance, this recent paper in Science used data from genetic analyses of hunter-gatherer societies, together with mathematical modelling, to explore whether group selection hypotheses for the origins of altruism are feasible. This is not something that could ever be done for religious explanations of morality.

Mesk, sure there's an explanation for altruism, but not for an objective morality (if such a thing actually exists.) — refer to my last comment. Morality is what judges altruism as either objectively "good" or "bad."

Furthermore, it seems that this paper only tells us that altruism does indeed benefit survival and that people were indeed altruistic in the past.

What does this tell us about what we "ought" to do?

Furthermore doesn't Dawkins tell us that humanity can and should overcome its evolutionary heritage?

Is altruism any less of an evolutionary heritage than selfish genes?

Mesk:I agree that there is an important distinction between explaining the origins of morality, and deciding what is moral. Evolutionary theory can help us address the first question, but we must turn elsewhere for guidance on the second. I briefly lay out the basis for my own moral system[:]

Well, to some extent all moral systems are arbitrary, in that we have no completely objective way of deciding whether or not they are correct. Even theists rest their morality on subjective interpretations of religious texts, interpretations that change over time and vary substantially between individuals. Certainly there are core moral beliefs of (say) Christianity that are the same now as they were two millennia ago - but by and large these are core moral beliefs shared independently by the rest of humanity (thou shalt not murder, steal, lie, etc.). Most non-theists would argue that the universal nature of these core beliefs suggest that they are the products of biological and cultural evolution occurring during the long evolutionary history shared by all humanity.

As for me personally, I generally adopt a fairly utilitarian approach to morality - I try to act in such a way as to minimise suffering and maximise happiness. I see this system as being similar to religious moral guidance in that it is simply a formalisation of near-universal human moral rules, but I believe it to be less arbitrary than any religious system I know of (in that it is largely unfettered by the illogical taboos that have accreted around the moral rules of all major religions).

Ultimately, I act morally and urge others to act morally because I wish to gain the benefits of a large and productive society, and a functioning society requires that all of its individuals are constrained by rules restricting their behaviour so as not to harm or disrupt the lives of their fellow citizens.

Of course, my moral system is still a work in progress: it still contains some inconsistencies, and there are areas (such as abortion) where I am deeply conflicted. However, I believe it provides me with a reasonable guide to acting and behaving morally. In addition, because my morality arises from thinking carefully through the logic of different positions, I trust it more than I ever could the largely pre-fabricated moral systems derived from the theistic religions.

BTW, morality as expounded by Jesus is as follows: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself." Absolutely no unnecessary religious baggage.

Mesk:

CJYman: Furthermore doesn't Dawkins tell us that "humanity can and should overcome its evolutionary heritage"?

Is altruism any less of an evolutionary heritage than selfish genes?

Read him in context: he isn't saying we need to overthrow every part of our evolutionary past, but rather that there are aspects of our evolutionary heritage that can and should be discarded. I think pretty much everyone would agree that altruism is one trait that would be useful to keep around.

And one final post for today: how does the quote from Jesus explain what the Christian position is with respect to gay marriage? Embryonic stem cell therapy? Organ donation? In vitro fertilisation? Environmental destruction? And so on…

It's a neat little quote, but it doesn't really capture Christian morality in practice, or the complexities of moral reasoning in general.

Mesk: I agree that there is an important distinction between explaining the origins of morality, and deciding what is moral. Evolutionary theory can help us address the first question, but we must turn elsewhere for guidance on the second. I briefly lay out the basis for my own moral system [...]

The origin of morality is explicitly and perfectly connected to deciding what is moral. If morality is a product of a purposeless, natural process which describes that which is useful for survival and reproductive benefit, then morality is not an objective law of "good" vs. "bad."

CJYman: Furthermore doesn't Dawkins tell us that humanity can and should overcome its evolutionary heritage?

Is altruism any less of an evolutionary heritage than selfish genes?

Mesk:Read him in context: he isn't saying we need to overthrow every part of our evolutionary past, but rather that there are aspects of our evolutionary heritage that can and should be discarded. I think pretty much everyone would agree that altruism is one trait that would be useful to keep around.

So, then morality is judged by that which is useful?

Mesk, when selfishness (as a part of our evolutionary heritage) was useful for survival and reproductive success was it either "good" or "bad"?

Is altruism (as a part of our evolutionary heritage) only "good" because it is now useful for survival and reproductive success?

And where did this notion of morality come from anyway?

Mesk: And one final post for today: how does the quote from Jesus explain what the Christian position is with respect to gay marriage? Embryonic stem cell therapy? Organ donation? In vitro fertilisation? Environmental destruction? And so on…

It's a neat little quote, but it doesn't really capture Christian morality in practice, or the complexities of moral reasoning in general.

If moral reasoning is a complex issue, it is only so because it is an objective standard (with its foundation in ultimate reality) that humanity is attmepting to understand and attain. In order for it to be this objective standard of "good" vs. "bad", it can not arise out of that purposeless process which supposedly causes electro-chemical impulses within our brain for the purpose of our evolutionary survival and reproductive success. As already shown, that which arises out of a purposeless process is netiher "good" nor "bad." What could be less complex than "everyone gets to make their own moral rules?"

If the above is understood, then we can actually attempt to discover what the objective moral code is. If it is grounded in loving the Ultimate Reality and the Ultimate Reality tells us to love others as ourselves, then we at least have a starting point when discussing morality. Our start point would then be "which actions show true love?" Of course, love would need to be defined, but at least we are getting somewhere in understanding an actually objective morality.

﻿If religion is thriving then it must have been selected by natural selection. If it was selected by natural selection it must help us propogate our selfish genes. This is at least true -- look at Catholic overall reproductive rate.

So, religion was obviously created and is being used by the selfish gene in order to propogate itself. If it is the case that our only moral obligation is to our selfish genes (which doesn't tell us why we should be moral in the first place -- why not REBEL AGAINST EVOLUTION; we are encouraged to rebel against everything else), then we should all do what is necessary to propogate our selfish genes. Anything done to oppose that creed would be immoral.

Furthermore ...

?Dawkins has boasted that his work brings home the reality of the ruthless, mechanistic explanation of human existence. “You are for nothing. You are here to propagate your selfish genes. There is no higher purpose to life” (Bass, 1990, p. 60). And, Dawkins has admitted, he is gratified that in reading his book, people are “losing religious faith” (Bass, 1990, p. 60). According to Dawkins, “religion is very largely an enemy of truth” (Bass, 1990, p. 87). He has characterized the idea thatGod was created by man as a “blasphemy” that atheists “have to fight against” (as quoted in Watson, 1987, p. 11).

-Taken from: http://apologeticspress.org/articles/2013

If Dawkins version of the truth is that our only “purpose” in life is to propagate our selfish genes, then whomever reproduces the most, or the highest “quality,” is in touch with the highest and only real purpose in life. Furthermore, the ends would justify the means, since there can not be any true morality. Unless, of course we allow that our idea of morality could be gauged by whatever allows “propagation of our selfish genes.”

Of course, Dawkins says that reproduction is our only purpose, since that is really the only thing that keeps us existing – continues the supposed chain of random chance evolution and keeps humanity from disappearing. Therefore, according to Dawkins, whatever allows our species and more specifically the evolution of life to continue is the highest purpose.

So, is any idea that allows more reproduction and the further evolution of our species a “moral” idea, and any idea that contradicts the reproduction and the further evolution of our species an “immoral” idea?

How then can a religion which promotes close family units and love and which has as one of its first commands to be “fruitful and multiply,” and “love others as you love yourself” as its greatest command, be something so horrible and blasphemous to Dawkin’s truth that reproduction and cooperation for the purpose of survival and supposed evolution is our highest purpose? What if cooperative religions were just a product of evolution that allowed the further survival of our species? This religion would definitely further survival and evolution, and would therefore be “moral.”

As a side note, the religious people that I know are deeply focussed on the upkeep of the family unit, which is key to instilling principles of cooperation, love, and in the end furthering reproductive success through these very principles. However, it also seems that many non-religious people treat sex as mostly entertainment and want to worry about as few children as possible, and use the means available to make sure this happens. (This is just my personal opinion however I would like to check into the stats)

Furthermore, look at the Roman Catholic religion which frowns upon birth-control. Is this religion not doing its utmost to propagate their genes in fashion with Dawkin’s highest purpose in life?

Therefore, it is obvious that Dawkins has either an illogical or a deeper grudge with any religion than he is letting on.

Additionally, according to Dawkin’s view of morality, birth control and even abortionists are some of the most evil people in the world since they impede the highest purpose in life by obstructing the “propagation of the selfish gene.”

As a result, Dawkin’s should come to embrace those religious groups, particularily Roman Catholics, who say that birth control is not to be used and that abortion is wrong.

If, however, the best plan for the ultimate propagation of the selfish gene and the furtherance of evolution, is to limit our population, then the argument may be able to be made that abortions may be necessary to curb our population and allow it to ultimately survive and continue to evolve.

If this is true, though, laws should be mandated that require a certain quota of abortions to keep our population in check, if other birth control methods do not work well enough. Then, in this case, propagation of the selfish gene is not necessarily the highest purpose. It would be a second rate purpose to the ultimate purpose of survival and the evolution of our species. Of course this would require the propagation of our selfish genes, but would not be the be all and end all, since some measures may have to be taken to eliminate a specific ratio of selfish genes in order to limit our population.

Therefore, in this scenerio, Dawkin’s synopsis is wrong and “propagation of the selfish gene” is not the highest purpose to which we can aspire, since that may need to be put aside for the higher purpose of survival and evolution of only a percentage of selfish genes in existence through whatever methods of “population check” are necessary. Or, it could be that he is just being inconsistent and illogical in his assessment that religion is an enemy to his supposed truth that the propagation of the selfish gene is the highest purpose in life, since some religions, especially Roman Catholics deem as wrong any birth control which kills the sperm or the fetus "unnaturally," thus opposing that which reduces the propagation of the selfish gene.

Well, then we'll have to first start off by examining what is "bad." If we are looking at the concept of "bad" from the vantage point of a purposeless universe which created the concept in question through a random process filtered by reproductive success and surviveability, then I'm sure we can judge "badness" as that which would hinder reproductive success and suriveability. But of course, this does not deal with "bad" in the sense of being that which we objectively "ought not" do (as C.S. Lewis put it).

If the above is truly the case, the "good" and "bad" would be merely subjective constraints agreed upon by those who wish for evolution to continue. Obviously, though, this wish itself — that of evolution continuing — must be ASSUMED to be "good" or something that "ought" to happen, since I see no reasonable way to judge this wish as "good" or "bad" itslelf — as in something that objectively "ought" to or "ought not" to happen. If the process of evolution occured non-purposefully, then it just occured. Evolution itself would be neither good nor bad, and reducing everything to its essential core, would then compel us to realize that anything resulting from evolution is neither good nor bad.

However, this gets us nowhere in our discussion except to show how materialist thought has "bounced its reality cheque." So, let us concede for the sake of argument that evolution is a "good" thing and anything that opposes it is indeed bad. Thus everything that helps evolution is indeed good.

Now, we can apply this to our original question: "is religion bad?" Well, does religion impede or does it facilitate evolution?

﻿If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just
as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know
it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.

Albert Einstein

﻿The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.

About Me

I am a Christian and I believe that the universe and life was designed on purpose, with a purpose, and for a purpose. I believe that objective truth and reality do exist and can be discovered through reasoning. Regarding evolution, natural selection and evolution obviously occur, however the use of natural selection to produce increase of complex and specified information is not possible absent the existence of previous highly improbable and specified information not defined by physical properties of material used. I could be seen as a theistic evolutionist who also believes that the foundational tenets of Intelligent Design Theory are both scientific and correct.
I describe myself as a realist and I also enjoy cooking and snowboarding.